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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23926435">You Can't Live There Forever</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootprophet/pseuds/padfootprophet'>padfootprophet</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>DCU, Teen Titans (Comics), Titans (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Fluff and Smut, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tree Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:28:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,287</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23926435</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootprophet/pseuds/padfootprophet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's not like you didn't spend every other free weekend here," Wally says. "I'd think you'd be at least a little attached."<br/>"It's not like we stop being friends just because someone tears down the treehouse," Dick replies.</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Wally spends one last night in his childhood treehouse with his best friend before his mom sells the house. Realising he's attracted to said best friend wasn't really part of the plan.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson/Wally West</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>287</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Can't Live There Forever</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hope everyone's doing alright, and if you're feeling down can I offer you something designed to be real cute?</p>
<p>Title from The World Is A Beautiful Place &amp; I Am No Longer Afraid To Die because if nothing else I am consistently a complete emo.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rattling slide of the patio door opening and closing clues Wally into the end of his solitude well before a voice calls, "Walls?" from the base of the ladder up to the treehouse.</p>
<p>"Up here," Wally shouts back, unwilling to move from his vigil: laid out on the floor, an old, threadbare blanket the only thing between his back and the damp and dust that have taken over the aged structure. Instead he traces the path of dust motes in the beams of sunlight where they slip around the edges of the branches above and through the cracks in the ceiling.</p>
<p>There's a creak of the wooden ladder leant against the tree and then a thump as the trapdoor into the treehouse falls open and sends another cloud of dust spiralling through the air. Wally glances over as a head of midnight hair and a familiar face appear in the gap.</p>
<p>Dick braces his folded arms against the floor and then sets his chin on them, feet still on the steps below and most of his body out of view. "Figured I'd find you out here," he says, "although it helps that your mom saw you sneak off this way."</p>
<p>"I wasn't sneaking anywhere," Wally protests rolling his eyes, "I <em> told </em> her I was going to get some air." He turns his focus back to the knotted wooden planks above him.</p>
<p>"Yeah." Dick levers himself fully into the space that's just about big enough for the both of them. "Real fresh up here."</p>
<p>The trapdoor falls shut with another thud and another cloud of dust and then Dick is crawling over Wally, kneeing him in the side and shoving at him until he rolls to the edge of the blanket and Dick can drop down next to him.</p>
<p>"Guess you're not sulking like the protagonist of some teenage chick flick either, then?" Dick asks. He waves a hand in front of Wally's vision in a melodramatic gesture. "<em>Oh, life is so terrible</em>," he mocks in a high pitched and breathy voice.</p>
<p>Wally shoves a hand in his face. "Did my mom tell you I was sulking?"</p>
<p>Dick hums. "No. But she did send me out here with the promise of pizza so she clearly thinks something's bothering you."</p>
<p>"It's nothing," Wally says quickly, before huffing and amending, "I'm allowed to be bummed about my childhood home being sold. You can make fun of me when some stranger wants to turn your old bedroom into a home gym."</p>
<p>"I don't think Bruce is allowed to sell the manor," Dick says with a laugh, "and think of the ramifications if someone tried to put in a basement."</p>
<p>Wally shakes his head and looks over at his friend. Dick's wearing an old pair of denim overalls; the faded blue speckled with paint that Wally <em> thinks </em> he'd used two apartments ago. It's hard to keep track when he's so transient, and really Wally shouldn't expect him to understand: sentimentality over places isn't in his nature.</p>
<p>Still. "It's not like you didn't spend every other free weekend here," Wally says. "I'd think you'd be at least a <em> little </em> attached."</p>
<p>"It's not like we stop being friends just because someone tears down the treehouse," Dick replies.</p>
<p>Wally huffs. "Stop being so reasonable."</p>
<p>"That's your fault. If I didn't have to keep saving your ass..."</p>
<p>Wally doesn't let him finish, shoving at him until he rolls away laughing, one elbow coming away green-grey when it falls off the blanket and onto the lichen and dust that lines the treehouse floor like a carpet.</p>
<p>It's probably ridiculously immature to be play-wrestling like they're less than half their age, but Wally does forget about being sad for a moment, even when he loses and Dick pins him down onto the blanket, eyes sparkling with laughter and cheeks dusted red from the exertion.</p>
<p>Dick flops down next to him again, stretching out almost fully across the space between the treehouse walls, fingers catching in the remaining sunlight that filters through the window. There'd been cheap sheets of plastic in the space once, but they'd become brittle and yellowed in exposure to the sun and fallen apart under the weight of the years.</p>
<p>Dick's stretching pulls his crop top higher and a span of tan skin opens up in Wally's field of view, the fresh pink scar twisting along Dick's ribcage evidently not bothersome enough to make him change his outfit. He's clearly oblivious to the fact that Wally's mom will take note and then give Wally a disapproving look - like it's <em> his </em>fault for every injury Dick receives in the field.</p>
<p>Like he doesn't already blame himself every time he's not quite quick enough to protect the people he cares about.</p>
<p>Wally looks away, back to the window past Dick's fingertips, and the sky burning orange and fading pink. "You ought to get going soon," Wally says, "right?"</p>
<p>Dick huffs. "And waste the fact your mom agreed to order an extra pizza?" he asks. "Besides, I already made sure she didn't pack away all the blankets."</p>
<p>"Why?"</p>
<p>"I figured we'd camp out here. For old times' sake."</p>
<p>Wally turns to find Dick watching him with a knowing smile. He wonders if Dick had planned this when he agreed to come help pack up the house, because he has a tendency to think four steps ahead and he knows Wally better than just about anyone.</p>
<p>"I thought <em> you </em> thought I was being overdramatic and mopey."</p>
<p>"You <em> are</em>." Dick's smile grows wider. "But I'm not going to pretend I don't have good memories here." He gets a distant look, and Wally can't help but reminisce himself, thinking back to the first time he brought Dick up here - self-conscious because his house wasn't <em> nice </em> like Dick's, proud because the treehouse was at least pretty cool, excited because Dick was fast becoming his best friend.</p>
<p>Dick nudges him with a knee and says, "It was nice to pretend like we were normal kids on occasion."</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Night falls before they climb back into the treehouse, guided by memory and the glow of the lights still on in the kitchen behind them. There's not a lot of space in the old structure - designed for Wally when he was half his current height and before he really had any friends - and it's easy to fill it with both of them sat across from each other on layers of blankets and either side of the pizza Wally's saving for a midnight snack.</p>
<p>Or a whatever-time-it-is-now snack, because Wally grabs a slice and stuffs most of it in his mouth before saying, "Feels like we should be telling each other scary stories."</p>
<p>Dick grabs one of the other slices and takes a couple of bites with far more restraint before replying. "I think most of my stories were just repurposed from B's old case files."</p>
<p>"Gotham is truly horrifying, huh?" Wally asks around the rest of his pizza slice.</p>
<p>Dick sighs. "You never did learn any table manners, did you?"</p>
<p>"Nope." Wally starts on another slice - still delicious despite being cold enough that the cheese is starting to solidify and puddle grease. "Besides, I don't see a table here."</p>
<p>"Fine." Dick shrugs. "You want to hear some new horror stories based on real life events?"</p>
<p>Wally pauses in his eating. "Pass." Maybe he's getting old, but hearing the terrifying things Dick went through as Robin, what he still goes through when Wally isn't around and he's only got bats for backup make him want to wring his hands and not let Dick out of his sight in case he <em> loses </em> him. "Gossip about our love lives?"</p>
<p>Dick laughs loudly. "What love lives? Last I checked you were considering a <em> dog </em> as a life partner."</p>
<p>"Still am." It's a white lie, really, because Wally knows he doesn't have the time or stability to look after a dog right now and he never gets further than looking at cute pictures on adoption websites before quitting. "You got any bright ideas, then?"</p>
<p>"Stargazing?" Dick suggests after a moment's thought. He doesn't wait for a reply before wiping pizza grease onto his paint stained overalls and shuffling across the blankets to the open window of the fort. They used to have to pull the plastic away before climbing out - and really, it's no wonder it fell apart eventually - but now Dick can pull himself onto the plank that forms the windowsill without obstruction: half out, half in, and haloed by a shaft of pale moonlight.</p>
<p>It catches against his skin and hair and sparks against his eyes when he turns to glance out towards the garden. Wally's breath catches in his throat because Dick looks ethereal, unearthly and <em> beautiful</em>.</p>
<p>The thought hits him like a slap, because since when was Dick this attractive? Or more importantly, since when did <em> he </em> think Dick was this attractive? The answer is a crystalizing realisation in the back of his mind that maybe he's known forever.</p>
<p>He stares, barely breathing, tracing the sharp and soft lines of Dick's face and when Dick leans out and reaches up to lever himself onto the roof of the treehouse Wally's eyes flicker over his arms and down to the patch of skin between his crop top and his overalls. Even the scars that criss-cross his torso look like something supernatural in the faint moonlight.</p>
<p>Dick catches Wally's eyes and he pauses in his escape to the roof. "Wally?" he asks, his words like syrup, and Wally thinks he might be slipping into an accelerated state. "Are you alright?"</p>
<p>The thing about super speed is that Wally can do things faster than he can think them, and thinking before he acts isn't easy. He wishes it was the second after he says, "I can't believe this is my bi awakening," and his brain starts working again.</p>
<p>He buries his face in his hands, cheeks burning against his palms, and hopes for a brief moment he said it too quickly, or too quietly, for Dick to understand it. His hopes are dashed by Dick bursting into laughter.</p>
<p>Wally digs the heels of his palms against his eyes, shame crawling up his spine, and the last thing he needs is to be <em> laughed at </em> right now. "Shove off," he mutters viciously.</p>
<p>"Oh, Wally." Dick's laughter dies away in the softness of his voice and then there's a creak of the wooden floorboards and when he speaks again he's in Wally's space and wrapping fingers around his wrists to pull them away from his face. "Baby, come on."</p>
<p>Wally didn't think his face could get redder until Dick purred <em> baby </em> like a pet name. His stomach flutters and he feels a tingle across his skin at every point where Dick's warmth is close enough for him to feel. Every reaction seems way too strong considering he only figured out he maybe likes Dick - and dick - moments ago, but he supposes it's not the first time he's gone from zero to a thousand. He lets Dick pull his hands back and tries not to shudder at the way he holds them, rubbing thumbs across Wally's racing pulse point.</p>
<p>"Do you remember my fourteenth birthday?" Dick asks. Wally's still reeling a little too much to give an answer, but apparently it was a rhetorical question because Dick keeps talking anyway. "It was the first birthday that Bruce wouldn't be around for. Super important Justice League business. I got that, and I said I was <em> fine </em> because I was <em> fourteen </em> and didn't need my dad holding my hand anymore. You figured out I was upset anyway."</p>
<p>Which isn't surprising, because Wally can't believe <em> that </em> statement ever sounded sincere. If Dick told him tomorrow he didn't need someone holding his hand Wally would be checking in every ten minutes to make sure he didn't do something reckless and stupid and land himself in hospital. Fourteen year old Dick hadn't been quite as prone to lone-wolfing as the man crouched beside Wally now, but his tendency to distance himself and do something rash isn't exactly <em> new</em>.</p>
<p>"I made you a cake," Wally says, because he does remember that. And he remembers eating it in Dick's bedroom and both of them pretending Dick wasn't teary eyed over the gesture.</p>
<p>Dick smiles down at Wally, a soft shift in the faint light that stretches through the treehouse. "Yeah," he says, "You still had a smear of frosting on your cheek when you arrived, and... well." He shrugs.</p>
<p>Wally blinks. "Is there a reason for the trip down memory lane?" he asks.</p>
<p>"You're lucky you're cute," Dick says, "because you're not all that smart."</p>
<p>Then he throws a leg over Wally's and lets go of one wrist, cupping it against Wally's cheek instead, thumb brushing over his blush and then fingers sliding backwards into his hair. <em> Oh</em>, Wally thinks, and then Dick is leaning in and kissing him, and he thinks <em> oh </em> again because it's kind of overwhelming.</p>
<p>They're pretty far from fourteen now, and whilst Wally <em> knows </em> Dick can hold a torch long past the point anybody with any kind of self-preservation would have learned to move on it's a strange idea to think he made the list. It would be almost unbelievable if Dick wasn't pressing a desperate kiss against his lips, fingers of one hand tugging lightly at his hair and the other fisting into his t-shirt.</p>
<p>Dick somehow crowds even closer and Wally's more than happy to let himself be pushed over backwards until his head lands on one of the pillows they'd dragged up here and finally jolts him enough to start responding, to push back against that hint of teeth and tongue, and to slide his hands over the denim of the overalls until they settle against the stretch of Dick's skin.</p>
<p>Wally gently traces his fingers over the fresh scar on Dick's ribcage, feeling as the muscles tense and then release with a shudder under his touch and hearing a soft sound against his lips. Wally wants to chase it so he repeats the motion, a little put out when it causes Dick to pull back instead.</p>
<p>"Stop it," Dick huffs, and the shudder is followed by a squirm.</p>
<p>Wally flashes him a lopsided smile, dizzy and breathless. "Right," he says, "you're ticklish." He lets his fingertips trail over Dick's warm skin, too gentle to be prepared for the retaliation of Dick grabbing his wrists and pinning them down against the pillow under his head instead. The dizzying feeling intensifies.</p>
<p>"You look good like this," Dick says, gazing down at Wally with heavy lidded eyes and pink lips. Wally can't think of a witty retort, not before Dick leans down again, still pinning his wrists and settling over his body, pressing deeper kisses against his mouth. Wally takes a second to identify the dizzying rush of blood as <em> arousal</em>.</p>
<p>Then he realises he can't hide it.</p>
<p>Not with the way Dick is straddling his lap, barely an inch of space between them anywhere; a fact that isn't helping the tingling arousal singing across Wally's skin. He's not sure he wants a reputation for being fast in <em> this</em>, but he also doesn't want Dick to stop, doesn't want to lose this closeness. And really, it's hard to care when Dick is kissing him hard and slapdash and everything between them feels like fire.</p>
<p>Wally has a passing thought that maybe he should have realised he was attracted to his best friend before now.</p>
<p>Especially when Dick pulls back, panting heavily and sits upright. It sinks him deeper against Wally's lap and a low noise escapes between kiss swollen lips as he rocks against Wally again, the straps of his overalls slipping down his arms. Wally slips his wrists free of Dick's hold to pull them away completely, watching as denim pools around Dick's bare waist.</p>
<p>"<em>Dick</em>," Wally groans as Dick grinds against him again, and he realises underneath the thick denim he can feel Dick growing hard, and every time he rocks in Wally's lap Wally's shirt rides up and they get a little closer to skin to skin contact. Not that Wally's in a hurry to strip off in the moulding wood of the tree house, and it's not as though he's going to have any trouble getting off like <em> this</em>.</p>
<p>Wally arches, spurred on by the quiet noises catching in Dick's throat, and thrusts up as Dick grinds down. He pushes himself upright and he's not sure if he's slipping into super-speed or just caught in the unreality of the whole situation but time feels like syrup again and everything drops away past the rhythm between the two of them and then Wally's pressing a hot and desperate kiss against Dick's lips to try and drown out his cries as he peaks, spilling into his sweatpants with an eagerness he'd thought he'd outgrown.</p>
<p>"Shit," Dick says between gasping breaths, "Wally. Tell me this isn't a one-time thing."</p>
<p>"This isn't a one-time thing," Wally says obediently, before shifting so he can press a trail of kisses that taste like Dick's sweat along his jawline. "God, I hope this isn't a one-time thing." He shoves a hands between their bodies, and it's little more than pressure against Dick because it's hard to get a grip through the stiff denim and the overalls are still caught up between them, but it's enough to make Dick whimper and thrust harder and his own cries of ecstasy are buried against Wally's shoulder.</p>
<p>Dick pulls away and runs a hand through his sweat-slick hair. He shines in the moonlight and Wally doesn't let him put any more space between them before kissing him, slow and breathless.</p>
<p>Dick slumps against him, arms wrapping around his shoulders. "Ugh," he says, shifting onto his knees and putting space between them. The flux of colder night air makes Wally wrinkle his nose. "That's gonna chafe," Dick adds.</p>
<p>Wally laughs, dropping his head against Dick's shoulder. The scent of sweat and sex between them will likely be dissipated by morning - probably for the best. "That's what you get for wearing overalls."</p>
<p>Dick leans back, holding Wally in place with a hand at the back of his neck. He smirks knowingly. "Oh, so you like the outfit? Should have known, <em> Midwest</em>. Got a thing for farmers?"</p>
<p>He shrieks with laughter when Wally rolls them, dropping Dick unceremoniously from his lap onto the blankets beneath them. "I am rethinking every life decision I have ever made," Wally grouses, "that led to us being friends."</p>
<p>"Friends, huh?" Dick's hand is still set against the back of Wally's neck, fingers curling into his hair.</p>
<p>"I- uh-" Wally falters a little, flushes under Dick's suggestive gaze, and tries to <em> think</em>. "Is it too ironic if I say I want to take things slow?"</p>
<p>To his surprise Dick blushes red at the question. "As long... as long as there's <em> something </em> to be taking slow."</p>
<p>Wally thinks back to Dick, brought to the edge, panting: <em> tell me this isn't a one-time thing</em>, the admission of the years he's wanted something more from Wally. It doesn't take a detective to work out what he's thinking. Wally leans in close for a soft kiss, a brief moment. "Yeah, there's something."</p>
<p>He rolls onto his back and breathes deep, staring up at the slats of the treehouse ceiling. "You know," he comments, "it's probably a good thing the new owners are going to tear this thing down, seeing as we've thoroughly defiled the place." Dick laughs, and the rush of pleasure Wally feels at the sound is both new and really, <em> really </em> not.</p>
<p>He definitely should have put things together sooner.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Dick and Wally sitting in a tree, doing things that aren't PG...</p></blockquote></div></div>
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